Question

My child was nine months old when they experienced diarrhea. What effective medications can be used for treatment?

Answer

The treatment methods for pediatric diarrhea include:

  1. Dietary Therapy: Providing appropriate nutrition is crucial for promoting recovery, reducing weight loss and growth stasis, shortening recovery time, and preventing malnutrition. After diarrhea stops, continue to provide nutritious food and add a meal each day for two weeks to promote normal growth. For children with malnutrition or chronic diarrhea, the recovery period may require a longer time.
  2. Care: For infectious diarrhea, attention should be paid to disinfection and isolation. Monitor vomiting, defecation, and urination. Provide timely water or oral rehydration solutions, and control the rate of intravenous fluid administration. Strengthen eye care to prevent aspiration due to vomiting. Regularly turn the child to prevent secondary pneumonia.
  3. Infection Control: Viral enteritis is mainly treated with dietary therapy and supportive treatment; antimicrobial drugs are not needed. Acute enteritis caused by non-invasive bacteria is often self-limiting and can be cured with supportive therapy alone, but antimicrobial drugs are still needed for newborns, infants, weakened children, and severe patients. Invasive bacterial enteritis usually requires antibiotic treatment. For example, for infections caused by Escherichia coli, medications that can be used include gentamicin, pipemidic acid, norfloxacin, furazolidone, certain cephalosporins, combinated sulfamethoxazole (combinational new sulfamethoxazole), berberine, and ampicillin.